302 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



at once to the Board of Agriculture. (See Leaflet, No. 22, 

 Board of Agriculture for Scotland.) This is the first recorded 

 case of N. erichsonii caterpillars being at work in Aberdeen- 

 shire. 



Attelabus curculionoides, L. 



On the i6th June this year I found a single specimen of 

 this insect in an oak wood about two miles east of the 

 village of Aboyne. According to Fowler {Coleoptera of the 

 British Islands) this beetle is considered rare in Scotland, 

 having been found only in the Forth and Tweed areas. 

 Attelabus awculionoides bites the blades of the oak and 

 Spanish chestnut across on both sides of the midrib, and 

 then rolls up the severed portion of the blade into a ball 

 which hangs by the midrib. The specimen alluded to was 

 caught when resting in a flower of the Lesser VVintergreen 

 {Pjrola minor). 



CrYPTORHVNCHUS LAI'ATHI, L. 



On 28th December 191 5, I found tunnels of the larvae of 

 this insect on the various species and varieties of willow that 

 are growing on the right bank of the river Dee, near Aboyne 

 village. These willows skirt the river bank for a distance of 

 over one mile, and in almost every one of them I found larval 

 tunnels. At a later date I examined the stems and branches, 

 and found some of them to be simply riddled with larval 

 tunnels. At the same time I collected some hundreds of 

 specimens of adults and larvct. This weevil is in Central 

 Europe a destructive enemy of alder, but although alder 

 trees of various ages were growing amongst the willows I 

 never found any of them attacked by Cryptorhytichus. 



Cryphalus abietis, Ratz. 



On the 9th April last I found this insect breeding freely 

 on the wind-blown stems of silver fir in a wood on the 

 Ballogie Estate. At a later date I discovered numerous 

 adults boring into the suppressed branches of the younger 

 standing silver fir trees in this same wood. 



